sweet like cinnamon
by thequeenofokay
Summary: She laughs, leaning into his chest. "I'm a proper Southern girl, you'll make me untidy." Ward feels like the only part of that statement that might be true is that she's Southern. / / southern gothic au


**notes:**

+ so i'm starting a new series of aos AUs bc i obviously have the time.

+ the original sorta genre i was going for with this one was "southern gothic", but i don't think i managed that. it's also kinda based off Skye's "i'm a proper southern girl" line.

+ title from "radio" by Lana del Rey.

+ idk what i think of this? i'm really just experimenting so constructive crit would be appreciated. like i have hardly proof read it, and i finished writing at after midnight bc i couldn't sleep until it was done.

+ also send me prompts for more AUs. my sister has been yelling "space cowboys" at me all day so i'll probably cave and that will turn up soon.

+ **warning − self-harm**

* * *

Nothing happened to Grant Ward until the Coulsons bought the ranch on the edge of town.

That's not strictly true, actually, but it's all the kind of horrible thing he likes to pretend didn't happen. His mother died, his father split his time between the local bar and the casino, and his older brother would terrorise him and his little brother.

Nothing interesting happened. Nothing good.

He first hears about the new residents from Ms Hand at the grocers. It strikes him as a bit weird, because no one new ever comes, and no one ever leaves. They all live out their lives in the town and are buried in the churchyard by St. Catherine's.

No, that's not strictly true either. There's a British pair that came a few years back. Two scientists that have been keeping the motel running.

He meets Mr Coulson when he comes down to Garrett's farm, where Ward works. He climbs out of a four-by-four that no one in town could even think of affording, and even though the day is stiflingly hot, Coulson is wearing a suit. Ward might stare, but so do Garrett and Triplett, the other farm hand, so he doesn't feel too bad.

Coulson wants to know if Garrett could spare any labour the next day, just to help him move some stuff around. He takes a wad of notes out his wallet - definitely more than Garrett could expect to bring in that week - and Garrett is all too happy to send Ward along.

Ward walks to the ranch the next morning. When he gets there, there's a girl sitting on the fence. She's wearing a plaid shirt and denim shorts, and there's a cigarette between her fingers. She's different from any of the girls in town. But she's pretty, there's no way he can deny it.

"You the boy dad hired?" she asks him, taking a drag.

"Yeah." He stops in front of her.

"He should be in the front of the house." She drops the cigarette onto the ground and jumps down, landing perfectly on it. Ward can't help notice the way her hair bounced round her shoulders.

She leads him there. The house is big - probably the biggest in town. It's white with ivy climbing up the walls and muslin curtains that are blowing out of all the open windows. Mr Coulson is sitting at the table in the kitchen with what Ward guesses must be his wife, since she does bear a resemblance to Coulson's daughter.

"Ward. I've got some things for you to move," Coulson says, standing up. He leads him out to the back of the house, and his daughter trails behind. They've got a van loaded with boxes. "If you could take these up to the attic. Skye will show you the way."

Skye gives her father a complaintitive look. He raises an eyebrow. Ward feels like he's witnessing some kind of telepathic conversation. Skye seems to lose the argument, because Coulson goes inside without another word and she waits behind.

"Try not to break anything," she tells him as he picks up the first box. She leads him back through the house, up the stairs, and then up another, steep set to the attic.

It's different from the rest of the house. It's dusty and smells of damp. Ward sets the box down as gently as he can, but it still clatters softly.

"I'll wait up here," Skye says. "Shout if you need anything."

He takes a break at lunch. Skye makes them sandwiches and they sit on the fence again. She talks twice as much as him, but doesn't really say much. She doesn't tell him where she's from or why she's here.

"So you've lived here your whole life?" she asks him, swinging her legs.

He nods. "Yeah. About a ten minute walk from here."

"Fun." He can tell she's being sarcastic. He doesn't mind.

"Not really. Nothing happens. Nothing interesting."

She laughs and flips her hair over her shoulder, like there's a joke here somewhere that only she gets. "Sure." Maybe she can make it more interesting, with her brightly coloured lips and her laugh that makes him smile.

It's funny how quickly she's got into his head.

When he's finished the sun is going down. Coulson gives him his pay and thanks him for his work.

"Show me round?" Skye asks, meeting him at the front of the house.

"What?" he asks.

"Show me round town," she repeats, like he's a bit stupid.

"It's dark."

"So?"

"So nothing much is open."

Skye grins. "Dark is the best time," she tells him.

They walk down the middle of the main street, because there isn't a car to be seen. He tells her who lives in each house, and she pretends to be interested.

The bar, though, is open, and Skye drags him in. It's close to empty, and Ward is just glad that his father isn't slouched over the bar.

Ward tries to say he doesn't really drink, but it turns out that he is going to tonight. Skye downs shots at a steady pace, only stopping when she decides she wants a cigarette.

They stand in the darkness, in a cloud of smoke.

Drink loosens his inhibitions a bit, it would seem, because he asks her why she's here.

It doesn't have quite the same effect on her, though, because she only smiles and says, "Dad says we needed to get away."

He walks her home, because he's a gentleman at heart, even if he's one lost out here in the middle of nowhere. He also doesn't think Coulson would be pleased if Ward got his daughter drunk and then abandoned her the first time he met her.

"We should do this again," he says, feeling courageous in his semi-drunken state.

She laughs, leaning into his chest. "Oh Ward, things are moving too quickly. I'm a proper Southern girl, you'll make me _untidy_."

Ward feels like the only part of that statement that might be true is that she's Southern. He's not even convinced about that.

She turns up at his house the next day anyway, and the day after that. Then she starts visiting him at work. She says she doesn't know anyone else.

"Why not try talking to someone?" he asks her one day.

"I don't want to know anyone else," she tells him. "You were right. They're not interesting."

He can't argue with that.

"Except the two British weirdos. They can sure hold their alcohol," she adds.

He's not sure why he would feel jealous.

"Have you met them?" she asks.

"No," he says. "Not really."

"You should."

Skye makes him come with her. They meet the British scientists - Fitz and Simmons, but Ward can't remember for the life of him which is which - in an old abandoned barn. Skye has a bottle of pack of beer in her hand, because Ward knows by now that she never goes anywhere without alcohol or cigarettes.

(She's going to die young, and every time he thinks it Ward hurts, because he never wants to let her go. He likes it when she turns up to watch him work and takes him out drinking afterwards. He likes watching her dance on the bar and he likes it when she holds onto him tight when he walks her home. He likes the smell of cigarettes, vodka and vanilla that clings to her and he likes the way she comes alive at night.)

Skye was also right that the British pair are really odd. They've brought their own alcohol, because they say the American stuff is awful.

Ward finally learns why they're in town. They're studying the stars.

"There's some really interesting astronomical phenomenon to be observed in the area," the woman (Simmons?) tells him. He can't even use words that big sober. "It's really a special place."

He doesn't want to burst her bubble by telling her that it's really not, so he lets her go on about some kind of cosmic ray thing.

"What did you think?" Skye asks, when they stop by the fence outside her house. The sun isn't long from rising, but Ward doesn't feel tired.

"They're enthusiastic," he says. She raises an eyebrow. "I like them."

"Good." She smiles, and goes inside.

People start asking Ward if they're together. He tells them no, they're just friends. He sometimes wonders if he wants more, but then he reminds himself it would never work.

She's as strange and bright and burning as the stars Fitzsimmons study.

He's just Grant Ward. From nowhere.

His father even asks, in one of the most humiliating conversations of Ward's life.

"I hear you've got a girl," he says. "Rich fancy one."

"No," Ward says evenly.

"Yeah. It's what they're all saying. When do I get to meet her?" He grins horribly.

"They're wrong," Ward says. "And you don't."

She doesn't meet him after work one Friday, and it's odd, because she meets him every Friday, without fail. He walks to her house, and finds the door open. He knocks, and when there's no reply he goes inside. He hears voices up the stairs, but it isn't Skye.

He hears her father. He hears him shouting urgently, and he hears the snap of a telephone being put down.

He finds Skye in the back yard. She wipes her eyes when she sees him, her smile too bright.

"Are you okay?" he asks.

She smile. "Why wouldn't I be?"

When they reach the front of the house he turns to go into town, and she tugs on the sleeve of his jacket.

"Can we go for a walk?" she asks.

There's no cigarette between her fingers and no bottle in her hand. She's just her tonight. She doesn't talk much, and that tells him something must be off as well.

They end up at the old barn, sitting with their backs against the outside wall.

"What's wrong?" he asks her again.

Her eyes are dark, filled to the brim with hurt. "You'll hate me," she says.

"I could never hate you," he tells her honestly.

She sighs. "You'll know by tomorrow anyway," she says. "Everyone will."

She takes a deep, gulping breath. "I'm not normal," she begins. "Me and my family. We're different. We don't die like normal people."

Ward frowns. "What do you mean?"

"My dad was stabbed in the heart and survived. I got shot twice through the stomach," she says. She lifts up her blouse so he can see two pinched white scars. She traces her fingers absently over them. "And I can do stuff. Weird stuff," she murmurs. "We came here for Fitzsimmons because we thought they might be able to help. We think it might have something to do with up there." She points up at the sky. "Like, I might be from up there." She pauses again. Her shoulder is pressed up to his and her can feel her shivering.

She takes a knife from her pocket then, and before he can stop her she draws it along her wrist. He gasps and reaches for her hand, but she pushes him away, holding out her wrist to show him instead. He expects to see red bubbling up, but instead her blood is sky blue, and the skin around the cut is healing already.

"But someone found out, and now we have to go," she says sadly. "Before someone tries to hurts us again."

He doesn't really know what to tell her.

"Do you think I'm a freak?" she asks, like she's scared to hear the answer.

He wants to tell her that she's not a freak. He wants to tell her that of course she isn't normal. He could have told her months ago that she was made of stars. It's obvious to him that her veins would run with stardust and not blood. She is as brilliant and wonderful and destructive as anything up there. This earth could never make someone like her.

But he doesn't know how to say it, so he kisses her instead, and hopes she'll understand. He thinks she must, because she climbs onto his lap and pushes her fingers into his hair. He thought she'd taste like cigarettes and vodka, but somehow it's sweeter, like vanilla. The night might be cold, but she's warm to his touch.

Her hands slide under his shirt as he kisses her neck.

He tugs hers off and she shivers against his body.

The next day there are people outside the Coulsons' door. Ward pushes through them all and into the house. Skye is in her room, in the very corner of the bed, hugging her knees.

"You shouldn't be here," she tells him.

"I want to protect you," he says. "I won't let them hurt you."

She smiles softly, shaking her head. "Grant," she murmurs. She stands up, walking straight into his arms. She fits perfectly. "No. I can't let you."

The day after that the house is empty. All traces of them are gone.

Nothing interesting and nothing good happened to Grant Ward before her and nothing will happen after.

He goes home. He goes up to his room and stares at the clothes and empty cans on the floor.

She made him untidy.

* * *

**notes:**

+ if you thought this would end happily you were really wrong. angst is my home.


End file.
